


open-ribcage gardens

by meios



Category: The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Blood, Body Horror, Bugs Under Skin, Death, Depression, Food, M/M, Panic Attacks, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Regaining Memories
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-01
Updated: 2014-08-01
Packaged: 2018-02-11 07:44:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,312
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2059773
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/meios/pseuds/meios
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There are bugs crawling around inside of him.</p><p>He is a living garden with his guts turned upside down and every word that the people in white coats say to him is like another scalpel to the skin, and they tell him that he is getting a little better every day and he just looks at them and laughs. His face contorts into madness and he claws at his flesh to get the insects off of him, his skin made of goose pimples, the metal too cold—he is too cold. The voices of the dead whisper to him and the doctors call him James and he remembers another self hating that name, but that self is dead now.</p><p>He is a zombie, shambling from one stark room to another.</p>
            </blockquote>





	open-ribcage gardens

**Author's Note:**

> the trigger warnings are tagged, but they can also be found below.

There are bugs crawling around inside of him.  
  
He is a living garden with his guts turned upside down and every word that the people in white coats say to him is like another scalpel to the skin, and they tell him that he is getting a little better every day and he just looks at them and laughs. His face contorts into madness and he claws at his flesh to get the insects off of him, his skin made of goose pimples, the metal too cold—he is too cold. The voices of the dead whisper to him and the doctors call him James and he remembers another self hating that name, but that self is dead now.  
  
He is a zombie, shambling from one stark room to another.  
  
They latch him to the bed with leather that he could break with ease, but he does not fight it, because the injection they give him next is something that quiets the world, all radio silence and darkness, and even as his metal arm curls and furls like nano-bots, his eyes succumb to sleep, his body falling downward.  
  
 ***  
  
** There are voices in his head.  
  
They speak when he speaks, sometimes in languages that he cannot recall that day or sometimes in whispers that are barely audible, like itches that are impossible to fully scratch, and sometimes he will break off the sentence that he was in the process of creating to listen to invisible nobodies, past selves, and the blond in front of him raises his eyebrows.  
  
The man that had found him, now sitting in a folding chair across from him, all muscles and leather jackets and anachronisms that one of the ghosts knows so well. It knows him as stupid nicknames and protection and slow dances in a dingy apartment and the question, bitter and thick like liquor, burns on the way out: “Why didn’t you look for me?”  
  
The voices say it in unison.  
  
They crawl in his head through his ears and they ask him, repeatedly, like bullets, “Why the fuck didn’t you look for me? I  _called_  for you! The snow was rubies and my voice was ribbons and all I knew was blood and  _you_  and I  _fucking called for you_!”  
  
And the blond man with big hands says nothing. He only peers at him with sad, blue eyes, and for a moment, the patient can remember a flash of the same hue: oceansskiesblueplanesblueeyesmistgunsbulletsbloodbloodblood. He winces visibly, covering his eyes, scratching at his face to get the bugs out.  
  
They latch him to the bed again.  
  
 ***  
  
** The blond man does not come back for a while.  
  
The memory of ocean-skies is one of agony, of unrequited something or other.  
  
 ***  
  
** He does not recall the days that pass, only the memories that start to flow, triggered by a word, a scent, a film that the people in white show him: ones that show not-him, dead-him, and the blond man, and other people with guns and knives and dynamite, and he attempts to shield his eyes from the lies, from the film reels that flow in front of him like ghosts, and he is a ghost, he is a zombie, and everything is a  _lie_ , everything is crawling and squirming and alive-dead and he screams because he  _remembers_  worms and dirt and a park in a city and a boy with a lost bottom tooth and a bandage over his nose and freckles that would soon disappear and the scent of cigarettes that he would steal and smoke when the boy was not with him and everything is smoke, dissipating, evolving.  
  
Reaching out to the thing that he cannot touch, everything evaporates.  
  
He cries. Without a sound, he cries.  
  
The people in white nod to each other, small smiles on each face.  
  
 ***  
  
** They tell him that he has been there for over a year now.  
  
They give him a cake on his supposed birthday, and he is too sick to eat it. He pushes it away, shakes his head to food for the rest of the day. Even when the blond man whose name he does not know walked into his room, offering him a book, offering him a tiny quirk of the lips that he does not return, and he does not seem as low-hoped as the other time he came, but he still does not speak as much.  
  
“ _Are you scared of me_?” the patient asks in a language he only recognizes, does not think he knows. And the blond man looks at him as if he is learning something new, his heavy brows lifting upwards, his eyes widening like seasskiesriversfish, and he licks his lips, as if a subconscious move.  
  
“ _I have never been scared of you_ ,” he replies, and that is that.  
  
 ***  
  
** The book is entitled,  _Crime and Punishment_.  
  
The protagonist is anti-radical, ideological, and for a moment, the patient does not understand why he has been given this to read, until he has taken a “new step, utter[ed] a new word,” for that is “what people fear most.” They are Russian, and the names flow off of his tongue quicker than English does, melodic and guttural, and the patient pauses every few pages to repeat the native words, relearn the sounds that he had made, once upon a time. He is quickly sucked in, reading more often than not, long after lights out has been initiated, and it is only when it ends far too soon that he realizes:  
  
“ _Walking along the crowded row  
_ _He met the one he used to know._ ”  
  
He stares at the wall instead of the barred window of his room. He wonders if this is what prison is like.  
  
 ***  
  
** They let him go outside on Sundays.  
  
The backyard of the hospital is spacious and green and the sun hurts his eyes worse than those inside, and he squints every time the doors open and he squints every time he goes back, and he is allowed free reign of this field, avoiding all of the other patients in too-big-paper robes with no backs.  
  
He climbs the tree in the center and watches, more often than not, appearing more like a bird than the soldier he apparently used to be. His metal arm grips the trunk, frequently breaks into the bark without meaning to—or perhaps he always means to: he was only made for chaos, for destruction, after all.  
  
He remembers mass and his parents and the lunches that he would invite St—the boy to. The blond boy. The boy with a name that does not belong in his brain, for he remembers falling and screaming and rubies on the snow and mountains and his arm lying several meters away from him and hyperventilation and shock and—  
  
He falls out of the tree, more often than not.  
  
They put him into a wheelchair every time, wheels him away from the sunshine and the smells of grass and pollen and smog from the city, and back into anti-bacterial spray and the beaten aroma of Latex.  
  
 ***  
  
** The blond man tells him that two years have passed.  
  
And then three. And then four. And then five. And each time, he remembers a little more, and with each time, every single memory is more and more painful. He does not know how to differentiate the true recollections from the dreams that the dead-him must have had, but each one is excruciating, and the blond man is there frequently, never touching but always there, until the patient grabs his hands once in a fierce grip, whispers, “Irememberoldapartmentsandcouchcushionsandthebugsareinmyheadbutthey’requieternowandIrememberyournamebutIcan’tsayitbecauseyoudeservebetterthanthatbecauseIrememberscreamingitatthebottomofthatmountainandIrememberkissesandhidingandseekingandfightsandbloodandalleywaysandasthmamedicineandeverythinghurtseverythinghurtseverythinghurts,” and he presses the blond man’s big hands onto either side of his head, and everything is silent, then.  
  
He squeezes dim eyes shut and bares his teeth, sets his sandpaper jaw, and the big hands are softer than his, are warmer than his, and the patient fractures, crumbles, curls up into himself with the man’s touch still with him. And the blond man sits in front of him, a folding chair, that same folding chair, pulled close, and he pulls the patient close, tears wetting his button-down shirt.  
  
He is an old car and he is stuttering, stammering, and he asks the blond man what his name is.  
  
“Bucky,” he replies immediately, breathless. “Your name is James Buchanan Barnes. You like being called Bucky.”  
  
The patient, the Bucky, nods silently, and the bugs in his head, under his skin, pause from their ceaseless crawling for a moment.  
  
And the blond man says, “What is my name?”  
  
“St—” he begins, and then stops, trembles.  
  
 _Heisnotworthyheisnotworthyheremembersthebloodandthegunshotsandhewantsitalltostophewantstodie.  
  
_ “Go on,” the blond man urges.  
  
“Steve,” the patient finally says. “Your name is Steven Grant Rogers. A-and I’m sorry.”  
  
There is a strange, pregnant pause, during which the blond man, Steve, pulls away, pushes back the overlong hair that has fallen in front of the patient’s, Bucky’s, face, and he is smiling and it is watery and there is rain. “No, Buck,” he murmurs, barely audible, shaking his head, “no, no, no, I’m sorry.”  
  
Steve pulls him back to his shoulder, his chest, his neck again, and Bucky remembers this, and it does not hurt when it does.  
  
 ***  
  
** He is let out after six years, prescribed large doses of anxiety pills, sleeping pills, depression pills, and he is given the personal number of the head doctor of his case with the instructions,  _Call me anytime you need to talk to someone_. And the patient—no,  _Bucky_  just nods, silent, in clothes that the blond man—no,  _Steve_  had left him a month ago. And Steve is there in the lobby when he signs the papers, and Steve is smiling wider than he’s ever seen him smile before, and he lets him sling an arm around his shoulders, a murmur about a room in a tower named Avengers that is already ready for him, and Bucky just turns, looks at oceansskieswaterfishmagicmist eyes and asks, “Is it next to yours?”  
  
And Steve nods, opening the passenger door of his car when they reach it; it is red and vintage and without a top and Bucky wonders where it came from, how it was created, how it was born like him—like a machine.  
  
His heart palpitates a little harder than usual upon sitting inside of it.  
  
“That gonna be a problem?” asks Steve.  
  
Bucky only looks up at him, and a tiny smirk stretches across his lips like Moses, and he says, “Why would I want to live next to a punk like you?”  
  
Steve pauses, his hands trembling for a moment before gaining back his self-control, his own sort of defense mechanism, and Bucky can remember instances of that very well, like camera shots, photographs. The blond eventually smiles, a flush spread across his cheeks.  
  
He calls Bucky a jerk, hops into the front seat, and drives.  
  
 ***  
  
** There are no bugs in his head. Only termites, sometimes, chipping away at the wooden skull inside of him, and sometimes he scratches, claws at himself, and every time, the blond man will put his hands over his own, pull them down, and pull him against his chest.  
  
And every time, the termites cease, as if sprayed with insecticide, dying slowly and surely, though their eggs always hatch shortly after. He babbles without breaths, the bottle within him uncorked and pouring out, exploding, a volcano.  
  
And every time, Steve listens, holding him close, his nose pressed to the top of Bucky’s scalp, slow and stopped and present. And every time, Steve is there, magical, supporting, and Bucky can understand why dead-him had been so head over heels.  
  
 ***  
  
** They kiss once.  
  
And it is quick and chaste and it is all that Bucky can take before another meltdown, and though that, too, is short-lived, Steve promises him that he will wait, if he wants this, and Bucky nods, ashamed. The termites are back. He scratches at the metal arm; it is not wood, no, but the bugs do try.  
  
 ***  
  
** They sleep in the same bed because the brunet does not like to sleep alone anymore.  
  
They sleep in the same bed because the brunet likes the safety of Steve’s embrace.  
  
They sleep in the same bed because the brunet wants to.  
  
 ***  
  
** Bucky kisses him and it feels like a punch, and Steve is bloodied, but it is not his blood, and Bucky does not care, but he kisses him, attacks him with his mouth, and it is quietly desperate, solidly whole, and the brunet can feel Steve’s heartbeat, wild and untamed, through the uniform, and Bucky’s heart matches it.  
  
And there are armslegsbloodstainshandswanderingheavybreathsbreathingthroughnoses. And Steve is pushed back against the wall as Bucky frames his face, hot and cold, and slows down the contact, draws away with his forehead pressed against Steve’s cheek, and he does not understand anything about what he’s feeling, only that dead-him had done this, too, and it had felt natural, needed, and Steve’s hands are interlocked at the small of his back, thumbs pressing little circles into his shirt, his skin.  
  
Bucky kisses the side of his chin.  
  
Steve smiles like candylight.  
  
 *****  
  
He is a living garden with his guts inside and his guts are flowers, dirt, growing from within him, replacing his eyes with buds that turn to roses, and his mouth is a tulip, and there are daffodils and baby’s breath and orchids inside of him, and the worms that slither within him are loud some days, but he is not dead. Or perhaps he is.  
  
Perhaps he is dead and alive and dead, and part of him is okay with that, because he met the man he used to know, the men he used to know, the women he used to know, and with the open-ribcage gardens that he sows, he creates life. He creates pain, he creates life, he creates pain,  
  
and he is God.

**Author's Note:**

> trigger warnings for: vivid descriptions of a character's journey through ptsd, regaining memories, depression, recollections of a gruesome death, mentions of blood, mentions of food, panic attacks, body horror, and the description of "bugs crawling under a character's skin".


End file.
